Son of VIP protection officer finally in court years after deadly crash
Nearly three years after a deadly crash that cost the life of an elderly Brits man, the teenager who allegedly stole his father’s car for a joyride with his friends, has appeared in court. Kgaugelo Masenya (19) made a brief appearance in the Brits Magistrates Court today. Patrick Jewell (65) died nearly three weeks after the 21 September 2021 crash. AfriForum’s Private Prosecution Unit represents Jewell’s daughter, Jacky Jewell, who approached the unit for help because of the police’s abject failure to investigate the case.
The teenager’s father is a captain in the police’s VIP Protection Unit. It is suspected that the failure to investigate the case is an example of police officers covering for their colleagues. Masenya has been charged with culpable homicide and driving a vehicle without a license. He was 16-years-old at the time of the incident.
On that fateful day, Jewell was on the pavement outside his house loading water bottles into his Hyundai i10 in order to water the flowers at his wife’s gravesite. Surveillance footage shows a white BMW X5 speeding around a corner, losing control and colliding with the small car where Jewell was standing. Jewell was critically injured and transported to hospital where he died 20 days later.
Within two months of the collision, Jackie Jewell had obtained the surveillance footage of the crash as well as the contact details of the person whose footage it was. This was provided to the investigating officer. Six months later he had still not obtained the video footage. Further, the investigating officer had not collected an affidavit from an eyewitness, which was drafted six weeks after the incident.
In May 2022, having learnt of the investigating officer’s conduct, the unit filed a formal complaint against the investigating officer with provincial police management. By July, having not received any meaningful response from the provincial office, the unit officially complained to the police’s national office. It was then that the matter was properly investigated.
The docket was eventually sent to court in May last year and a decision was made to prosecute Masenya.
Barry Bateman, spokesperson for the unit, said without the intervention of AfriForum’s Private Prosecution Unit, the matter would not have been placed on the roll. “Too often we deal with cases where detectives fail to do what they are duty-bound to do, which is to investigate crime. In this matter, we suspect that the status of the father of the accused was a factor in this failure to investigate. This offends the principle that everyone is equal before the law and can simply not be tolerated. It was the Private Prosecution Unit that ensured the SAPS gathered all the relevant evidence and presented a docket to the NPA,” said Bateman.
Jacky Jewell was grateful for the Private Prosecution Unit’s support. “I’m very happy, but I have mixed emotions, because you don’t know what to expect. But something is happening now and we can go to trial and there can be some sort of justice for my dad. AfriForum helped me the whole way, they were there the whole time pushing this case, getting more information and making sure that everything is 100-percent. I can’t say the same for the police,” said Jewell.
The matter was postponed to 10 April 2024.
